Just like all across the country, this past weekend was move-in day at Flagler College. It’s where I work, and also where I graduated oh-so many moons ago. So with a little bit of nostalgia, and a whole lot of masochism, I like to go back each move-in to help new college freshmen carry all their possessions – which must include numerous granite boulders – up to their dorm rooms. You learn quite a few things about the world, and yourself, when you undertake such physical exertion under the blazing August Florida heat. Important things, such as:
• You’re not as strong as you look. Actually, I don’t even look strong. Pretty scrawny, actually. So I don’t know why I try to be a hero and carry all the big boxes. I should stick to comforters, or boxes of tissues. But not me! I had to act super-strong and say things like, “Shoot, that shoe bin weighs more than twice my weight? Pshaw! No problem. Just strap it to my back with these ratchet tie-downs and don’t worry when you hear a snapping sound. That’s just my spinal cord rupturing.”
• You will feel such excruciating pain in the muscles on the insides of your elbows for days afterward. It will make you wonder if little aliens are about to pop out. I don’t know what those muscles are, or why after carrying boxes they hurt so much. But I would surmise by the awful pain that they have never been used before in my life.
• When you spot your old dorm room and see a really nice family moving their student in, don’t say something along the lines of, “Wow, you would not realize all of the crazy things that went on in here. I mean, I’m surprised the Health Department finally de-quarantined it.” No, this is not the time to explain how your roommate had a sock so disgusting that it mutated into some hideous being which could be trained to do tricks. Instead, just soak up all those memories … in silence and then walk away … with your hand over your mouth to filter out any leftover residue.
• Drink lots of water. And spill lots of it down your front. People will think you are so exhausted and have sweated so badly that they will pull you off your shift and take you straight to Health Services. There you’ll probably get a cookie, a cold drink and maybe even a magazine to read until the ambulance arrives.
• When a basketball player says, “Man, you are killin’ it!” and then raises his hand to fist-bump you, it is highly possible your arms will be so weak and tired that you won’t be able to reciprocate. So, come up with a good way to play it off, like saying, “Fist bumpin’ is for suckers! Real men pass out when they try to lift their arms. Goodnight!”
• Realize one day, very soon, this will be you. Because these “kids” don’t look that different from my 13-year-old daughter. Which is to say my daughter doesn’t look that different from these college kids. Which means one day in the not-so-distant future this WILL be me, unloading a car’s worth of possessions into a dorm room and choking back tears as I say goodbye. Ouch! That’s real pain. (And to top it off, some alum with bad timing will march in and say he can’t believe the Health Department deemed his old room habitable again.)